Instruments of Destruction 2: The Fall of Streak
by JZ Belexes
Summary: The second part of an epic of major proportions cowritten by myself, Streak, LeoKingdom, Dinotor, Shadowcat9279, Swiftclaw, Silverwing & GravityDragon. Streak's quest for power continues... but does he wield it, or does it wield him?
1. Chapter 1

The blue dragonfly stood over his fallen opponent. He had fought a Predacon, on Predacon territory. There was a good chance someone had heard the ruckus, and was coming even now. If not, well, he could be patient. The accidental deaths had sobered him up somewhat, so that his usually belligerent demeanor was subsiding by necessity. He needed to remain calm long enough to get this all cleared up. He had defeated the Predacon - just a weak scout - and successfully reigned in his power, sparing the fallen one's life. The dents in the scout's armor were still significant, but not nearly as bad as what had happened to Taurius, Redtop or Moonhunter. Sensibly, he had waited for the other Predacon to initiate the attack, as he knew he would. No questions asked, the scout had attempted to ambush him. As long as it was the Predacons starting the conflict, he couldn't get in trouble for it.

He turned his small black eyes in the direction he expected them to come. He wasn't deep in their territory, which meant that they'd likely come from the direction of the base, or at least from further in, not out. The scout hadn't even been a challenge, but he still lived. This was the power that Streak had wanted, the ability to dispatch his enemies quickly and easily, which would leave room for some style. After all, who didn't want to live up to that image? What warrior didn't want to cut through a swathe of enemies and still have the cool to smile and casually nod to the younger bots?

Surely, that would be the life. With just a little more work, that could be him. His strength was definitely on par with a Prime right now, though it was certainly a different kind of power than any he'd heard of before. It was probably some internal weapon he hadn't known how to activate before...to think, he'd been functioning as a frail skirmisher for so long, when he had been meant for greatness! Once he proved his abilities here, it was conceivable that he'd prove himself to be too powerful to simply disassemble. He would agree to many years imprisoned if it meant being re-accepted into the Maximals to live out his dream as the preeminent fighter of the age. Certainly, even a century or two of penance for his unintended crime wouldn't be too long to wait for that rich reward. Now, all he had to do was wait.

As the Conquest colony's Survivalist Consultant, one of the first things the Predacon known as Toxicon had insisted when the colony had landed on the planet was the establishment of a sensor grid around their territory. Obviously something extensive and running all throughout their land would take time to construct and build. But they needed something that would provide an advance warning against incursions by large native creatures and any Maximals.

But of course, when the alarm had gone off, Toxicon himself was the only ranking officer available to respond to it, for whatever lame reasons. Only one Maximal energy signature had registered, but already a scout had reported hostile action. He knew their Maximal neighbors could not be trusted. For all their bravado and self-righteous ramblings, Maximals were even worse than Predacons. At least the Predacons fought for something. And so Toxicon had grabbed the first Predacon underling he could see and ordered her to follow him to the reported incursion. That was his first mistake. He should not have allowed his impatience to goad him on and waited for someone better suited for combat to heed his call. But the realization did not strike him until he was halfway to the Maximal's location.

When Toxicon decided to answer the alarm, Rift thought it natural to tail him. "Be a doll and watch the monitors," she pulled over some mech and forced him into her seat. "Be back in a tick." Rift had pelted down the halls, knocking into some very pissed Predacons, who would eventually get back at her, but for now, she was a one-track mind. To better hide herself, Rift assumed her beast mode outside of the Conquest, and followed ten, maybe twenty feet behind the shiny black creature. He was scary, no discernable eyeballs and a second set of jaws. Yick. He called his beast form a "xenomorph." At least he had a wicked tail, or Rift would give him zero points for a beauty pageant. She shook her head, destroying that track of thought.

There the Maximal stood, over a wounded Predacon. Toxicon knew of this one… Bane had come back after an encounter with him and put a price on his head. "You must have a death wish, Maximal," he hissed, saying "Maximal" as if it was the greatest of insults. He had heard that this Streak had once been a Predacon. To be called a Maximal now was indeed an insult. Streak shamed his warrior heritage.

Rift was confused. The mech opposite certainly didn't look like a Maximal. He wasn't spouting slag about peace treaties and Pax Cybertronia for one thing. Rift rolled her optics, and zoomed in on the 'Maximal'. A bright, pretty, perriwinkle blue. Gorgeous. Definitely a flier. Why else would he have appendages growing outta his butt? She tentatively crept up beside Toxicon, transforming back into robot mode.

Streak grimaced at the hideous thing that met him. What _was_that alt-form? He couldn't remember ever seeing anything so disgusting...or fearsome. This Predacon had certainly chosen right... if there was anyone to test his control against, this was it. A comparatively tame looking ferret stalked behind the first-comer. "Oh, I wouldn't say that, pretty-bot." He smirked, in classic form. He'd need that cockiness to keep calm in front of such a grotesque adversary. "Just came out to stretch my wings, and your little buddy here jumped me." The Predacon at his feet groaned. Made sense...he hadn't gotten off easy, even though the dragonfly was holding back.

"Kind of on the outs with the Maximals at the moment, so I needed to find someone else to jerk around. I remembered that the Predacons were always good for a scrap." He cracked his knuckles loudly and tilted his head suggestively at the monster Predacon before him. "Your little buddy should join in. I suppose you could still run. I wouldn't stop you. But knowing that you won't, I feel it only fair to tell you that you won't last long by yourself." The smirk widened into a toothy sneer, one of Streak's favorite expressions. Sometimes, he forgot just how well he fit amongst these people.

Most 'bots who mocked Toxicon's choice in an alternate mode regretted it before too long. He was not subject to the pitfalls of ego, but sometimes ignorance needed to be remedied with a swift and brutal lesson. Beauty was nothing compared to effectiveness, and this creature was nearly flawless in design. (Truth told, however, he himself found the beast's form aesthetically pleasing.) Warning or not, the scout had been doing his job. He would be commended if he returned to their base alive. This impertinent intruder either did not understand that or did not care. And his lackadaisical attitude to proper conduct aroused an ire in Toxicon that wanted to educate this Cybertronian. Toxicon did not care about his affiliation or who he was on good terms with. Maximal or Predacon, it didn't matter. He was an enemy who would soon learn the consequences of attacking a member of the Conquest expedition.

"Toxicon: Terrorize!" he snarled. Hand-standing, the creature's arms began the robot's legs. He shifted and contorted, finally settling into a form that had just enough silver and purple to break the monotonous black. The Predacon drew his rifle, waiving it in the air in warning. "I will give you one warning. One. Leave now or end up in a recycling bin back at our base. Our chief medic has a reputation of doing… unpleasant things to bodies."

Alright. Cool, fight coming up. And Hotshot Jr. was going to regret calling Rift little. She favored him with an equal amount of teeth, reaching up into her subspace pocket. Her tri-barreled blaster slid out, glinting menacingly. It was fully loaded with four devastating charges that would eat through Maxie's armor and if she was lucky it'd be able to deflate his big fat head too. She leveled her weapon at him, ignoring Toxicon entirely. He was important, and probably of higher rank, but all that Rift saw was the pretty periwinkle mech about to get his aft-kicking handed to him. "Well 'little buddy' wants to kick your aft single-handedly right now," she smiled sweetly, her voice like poisoned honey. "You think I can't take you cuz I'm a femme or something? Well I'm get a kick out dancing on your empty shell."

Unfortunately, his subordinate was less patient. He saw her allow the verbal jives to affect her, a mistake only a rookie would make. As she brought her gun to bare, he swiftly smacked the side of her head. "Wait!" he ordered harshly. "Do not let his meager insult affect you. They are the weapon of a small mind with little confidence. Give this fool his chance to leave with some dignity intact."

Streak's grin grew to its full width as the two prepared for battle. The ferret had given him the reaction he wanted, though the big ugly appeared a little more level-headed... what a shame. Having something that hideous bearing down on him in bright anger would have been a very good test of his self-control. As it was, he'd just have to give them some reason to make him panic. They still thought they had the upper hand.

The acceleration was immediate. With a single leap, Streak went from zero to a top speed faster than he could normally replicate even by wing, crashing into the purple and black monster without warning. Even as his inertia jarred into the heavier bot, time seemed to slow down for the dragonfly. As the xenomorph flew backward, Streak felt all of his internal systems heating up as the external world became sluggish in relation to his racing mind. He kicked off of the Predacon with his other foot before the blow would normally have even registered to him, and landed in front of the ferret. He could feel the strain on his gears as his hands lashed out, striking at the femme in lightning-like succession, though he was holding his strength back to only two or three times his usual range. His body was never meant to function at this speed...but even now, he could feel that rogue program working changes to make it operable at this time-slowing pace.

His flurry of blows ended in one straight-kick to the torso, sending her tumbling away from him. That was when he heard the whine from his internal servos, and he stepped away, allowing time catch up to him. The burning inside was intense, but the program was rapidly working to make the repairs... clearly, he wasn't ready to move at that speed yet, and had damaged himself. Still, the point would be clear enough to these two.

"One warning, huh? Well, I guess that's thoughtful and all, but I believe that I already made that offer to _you._How do you really think this is going to end, Jaws?" He tried to use his smirk to hide his duress. He shouldn't have pushed himself so hard, he was supposed to be holding back. He could have managed the initial charge, but rebounding from the first attack and segueing into the second had been pushing his systems too far. Okay, so he had to reduce his strength for the sake of his opponents, but he'd need to reduce his speed to keep his own body together. One way or the other, he knew they had to be considering a hundred questions after seeing that display, most of which had to do with not getting killed.

_Holy spaceballs! He's fa-! _was probably the last coherent thought that went through Rift's processor. Streak was everywhere! Continous blows to her head, blowing out an audio, then another to her chest, cracking her armor. Then as a cherry on top, pretty periwinkle sent her flying with a kick in the gut. She must've gone offline for a second or two, cuz she woke up in a bush, pain signals flaring up from all her upper body receptors. She flickered her optics, bringing the fuzzy 5 dimension world she was seeing back into focus. Toxicon - _Finally I figured out his name_- was back on his feet. The lucky rat didn't even seem scratched.

The banter stage was over though. And Rift had never been good at banter, usually the barbs left her completely speechless and/or seething with anger. Battle was, in comparison, easy. Just point and shoot. She reached into subspace for her blaster... Slag! she had been holding it when periwinkle hit her. She had dropped it near Toxicon's feet.

Toxicon berated himself for not expecting such an attack. But how could he? Such speed defied the laws of physics! There was no way such a fragile-looking mech could accelerate so quickly without temporal manipulation. Cybertronians, for all their wartime and post-war technological advancements, still could not manipulate the fabric of space and time without large, bulky machines the size of a Seeker. And in truth, Toxicon hoped it always remain that way. If manipulating time ever became a pedestrian affair, than it was only inevitable that some fool would damage history irrevocably or even wipe out the universe as they knew it.

But at that very moment, Toxicon had to be more concerned with maintaining his life functions. Worrying that some idiot could wipe out his existence was a more existential matter for another day, if not a pointless exercise. He felt his foe body-slam him even before his optic sensors could process it, sending him flying back into a large tree. He hit it hard enough to be embedded into the wood, but the plant was thick and strong enough to not fall from such a blow. He himself would recover, easily prying himself out.

By the time he had freed himself, the intruder had already downed Rift, but that was no surprise. He seemed to have slowed down, and Toxicon could not pass up this opportunity. He might not have one again. Aiming his rifle, he sprayed a dozen pellets containing powerful acid not only directly for Streak, but all around him in the hopes of cutting off his chances of doging fire. "Today? I do not know. But you have now gained the enmity of the Conquest Predacons. Even if I do not stop you today, this will ultimately end in your termination."

Streak saw the ugly one pull himself up and open fire. He wasn't fast enough to dodge bullets, but somehow he was able to calculate the trajectory just by gauging the angle of the Predacon's gunbarrel with his eye. From there, it wasn't too difficult. His adversary fired haphazardly, pellets flying at him, to his left, to his right, and above him, but because each bullet passed much faster than Toxicon could pull the trigger again, there was always plenty of room to dodge, given that there was never more than one pellet flying his way at a given moment.

Well, it would have been easy, except that Streak's systems began to slow down again after dodging the first six shots. It must have been a sight, seeing him so casually avoid the first half-dozen, but the image of being untouchable was shattered as the next six impacted his thin armor. To Streak's enhanced senses, the splattering noise they made was almost as nasty as the bot himself looked. Then the pain kicked in.

"AH!" He crumpled to the ground, steam trailing up from his armor as he rolled behind the fallen Predacon. He was at his old speed again, and his internal systems were cooling down, but his outsides felt like they were on fire! Writhing in agony, he felt something profound changing within him. The pain began subsiding, and something alien began burbling up from his subprocessors. The program! _No! _he thought. _Back off! It's under control, I don't have to kill them! _He remembered how his old wounds had healed. The pain was gone now. He smiled sardonically before rising.

"Terminated, huh?" The holes Toxicon's acid had burned were repulsive...the thin armor had melted readily, but now...the wounds began closing. It had been slower before, now it was fast enough to actually see. "Get ready, because you won't get up after my second pass." Streak bared his teeth, and then his four wings roared into life, ten-fold louder than before. A whirlwind of cacophonous noise and flying debris surrounded the Maximal as he stared intently at his enemy.

What was this, some Maximal trickery? This was no ordinary Cybertronian, and even the normally even-keeled Toxicon was shocked by the rapid recovery of Streak's exo-structure. Perhaps they had experimented on him and driven him mad? Maybe he was not even mad, merely testing a new weapon for them under the guise of being a loner to prevent recriminations. There were rumors of the Maximal elders performing unethical experiments on their own kind, rumors Toxicon was inclined to believe. What better test subject than a former Predacon, someone who was not truly one of them?

Enough was enough. Quickly but calmly, Toxicon pressed a button on his arm, with glowed red briefly as he transmitted s signal back to base. He could swallow his pride if it meant preserving his own life and ending his foe's. "Do you know what I just did?" he asked. "I just transmitted a priority SOS to my base. Within moments, the entire security forces of the Conquest will be charging in, ready to end your life whether I am dead or now. Stick around long enough to kill us and they will end your existence. I doubt even a freak such as you can recover from complete vaporization."

Ordinarily, Streak would not have been able to hear a word spoken by the angry Predacon, but somehow he could make everything out in detail. A counter-threat, huh? Well, that wasn't much fun. Predacons were often up for going it alone, provided you found one whose bravado outmatched their fear. In this case, his opponent didn't seem particularly proud or fearful. Great, I go out to run a test and the guy I get is all business. I could have used more time! He felt a fast calculation run through his head, about the changes he would need to make to counteract that threat...

_Changes? _Just how far could this upgrade go? No matter what level he reached, he was still one bot. What psycho programming actually considered gearing up for a task like taking on an entire base full of Predacons?_ I'll definitely need to learn more about it... take things slow. I lost control after the first bout of changes, I can't get carried away with these alterations... _

"Tch, you're no fun. Guess I'll see you later, Ugly." That was when something very peculiar happened. That side line of thought had continued contemplating changes, and he was met with an irresistible urge to _take_ these bodies. _Take them? _He tried to tell his wings to carry him away, but that side thought wouldn't go away. For a moment, his wings stopped dead.

"Just how long do you think it would take me to terminate you?" he heard himself saying, and then he launched forward. When he stopped, he was standing on the far side of Rift, the small transformer between himself and Toxicon. The two of them were connected for a moment, frozen with their bodies linked. The dragonfly's arm was through his enemy, plunged straight through the torso like a fist through drywall, her spark guttered out instantly like candle flame in the hurricane. For an instant, the dragonfly's black eyes locked on Toxicon, and his characteristic smile wasn't there. The mouth was turned down in a slight frown, the head was tilted slightly to the side, as if the intelligence within was contemplating what to do with him. Wordlessly, the dragonfly took off, carrying the ferret by her dead insides. On his way out, Streak grabbed the first Predacon he'd met, leaving Toxicon behind as he shot through the air, back into the neutral territory.


	2. Chapter 2

"AAACK!" Scrounge found herself being tossed into a dark room by two or three rough brutes from the Maximal end. She was blindfolded and tied up in energy bonds so she wouldn't see where she was going per say.

The last thing Moonhunter needed right now was distractions. When he saw two of his men, Jenkins and Gorebash, come in with a familiar Predacon femme, he gave them an exasperated glare. "You couldn't have dealt with her yourself?" he asked from the tactical table of Colony Zeta's primary command center. Across from him sat his co-commander Lightfang. Optimus Unus had disappeared after having a final nervous breakdown. They were on their own, in the middle of a crisis, with no one else to assume command but the chief medical officer and the head of security.

"It's your favorite one though." Jenkins snorted. "Figured you'd want to off her finally. Honestly I don't know why you waited so long in the first place."

"Fuzzbutt?" Scrounge lifted her head some to get her head in the right direction toward him.

"What are you, an idiot?" Moonhunter sneered at Jenkins. Normally he would not be so insulting, but he was stressed to the max and had a shorter fuse than normal. Talk of killing sent that fuse burning to the dynamite within. "I'm not going to start a war with the Predacons just because of a minor annoyance." He was so infuriated that he ignored the very femme that was the subject of the argument.

"Well then what do we do with her? She keeps poking her nose on our turf and making a ruckus and it freaks everyone out around here that we don't do anything about her. Just off her quietly and they wouldn't even notice." Jenkins sneered back.

"He has a point on that last bit." Scrounge managed to wiggle some on the floor.

Moonhunter was on the verge of backhanding Jenkins. "We. do. not. kill. Predacons. Not unless they threaten us or other sentient beings. Otherwise we're no better than they are." He finally looked down at the femme. "Remove the optic dampener, but don't release her bonds. I don't want her breaking or stealing anything. And help her up."

"Better do it, you two," Lightfang piped up, though her voice had a humorous lilt to it. She seemed to be enjoying the show, of all things. Moonhunter appreciated her confidence that he could handle this situation. She certainly had more faith in him than he had in himself.

Jenkins rolled his eyes but obeyed. Scrounge found herself being supported and the dampener removed. "Whoa... your interior decorator sucks wet ball bearings Fuzzy."

"Things got messed up when we crash-landed and why am I even trying to justify this to you?" he sneered. "Why are you being such a bother, Scrounge? Right now we've got more important issues to deal with then the likes of you." He walked over to the command table and shut of the holo-image of Streak before she could get another look at him.

Scrounge however, was a thief. Her sharp optics had taken in every detail of the room within a second and she had seen the image. "Did ya loose one?" She nodded. "We've lost a few too." She had an even tone to her voice. Nothing too harsh or too soft.

"That is none of your business, Predacon," he said, saying the last word like it was a dirty insult. He didn't kill Predacons wantonly, but he didn't like them either.

"Oh I think it is my business when one kills two of my comrades." "Comrades" being a lose term. She didn't get along with her other Predacons… she was the omega female, so to speak. Ever since taking the form of an African wild dog, Scrounge found herself thinking in pack terms. She kicked her foot against his desk to wobble the image projector. "That face is plastered all over our base."

"WHAT?" Moonhunter whirled, walking over to her. He put his hands on her arms, grasping her desperately. "He did _what_?"

"You heard me Fuzzy... he has killed my comrades. To top it off he got away so everyone is just a bit freaked out right now." She sighed and wrinkled her nose some. Her face had a small canine muzzle rather than a traditional humanoid mouth. "Could you scratch my nose?"

"How do we know she's telling the truth, boss? This could be some Predacon trick." Gorebash asked.

Moonhunter looked into her optics. "I've been dealing with Cons almost my entire life," he answered. "I can tell when one is lying to me." He ignored her request, pressing on. He had bigger concerns than her itch, like a potential war over one rogue. "How is Bane dealing with this?"

"Pfft... that brainless ... we are forming hunting parties and seeking to wipe out the rouge. Not boosting defenses or anything that could actually work. Oh no he gets a team here and there and sends them out..." She shook her head some to get away from his gaze. To her animal instincts she was supposed to bow down to an alpha... but she was not all dog and she chose to mask that feeling. "You have beautiful optics."

Jenkins began smirking in the background.

"Are your wires crossed? Is that why you can't pay attention to anything longer than two astroseconds?" Moonhunter asked in utter frustration. He didn't have time to deal with this right now. "I want you to make your leaders understand that Streak has gone rogue from our forces. He's even killed a few of our men. If they can kill him, do it. Tell them they can even keep his head, but we would like his body." He heard some gasps around them. He knew his tactics would shock some, but he was used to dealing with Predacons. He knew how they thought. Whether or not that was a good thing depended on the situation.

"You think I'm stupid? Or any of them, in that respect? Or were you not listening?" Scrounge growled at him. "They ARE hunting him. You really think they would listen to me? Please. You want the body then barter for it. More then likely there won't be anything left."

Moonhunter lowered his head and raised his eyes up to scowl at her. "I just want your superiors to understand that Streak is no longer one of us. I will not have a war started over his actions. Neither of us wants that… do we?"

"No... but you're not understanding that I have no say in anything that they do. I'm not like you. I'm on the bottom of a pack and if I step out of line I WILL be killed and eaten." She stared at him now, her optics had a tinge of fear in them. Scrounge did not want to die. She may not have a lot to live for, but she certainly did not want to die.

He saw her fear. He knew Predacons killed their own lots of times. That was one of the reasons why he distained them. But to actually see someone lowly enough to live in fear of just that, to put a face it, made it more than just a statistic. He felt a swell of pity for this femme. His voice became softer, gentler, as he said, "All I'm asking is that you deliver a message for me. I'll record it onto a datachip. Tell them you met a Maximal courier outside your borders and they handed it to you. How does that sound?"

"That... that would work." She nodded and that fear eased back into that secret place where she kept it hidden. "But... I'm not stopping where I bury my gems." Scrounge gave a smirk toward Jenkins and Gorebash.

"I'll make a deal with you," Moonhunter said. "If you're willing to deliver messages for us in the future, and if you promise never to venture beyond the point of your stash, you can keep your stupid rocks. We'll drop any datachips you want to deliver in your pile for you to find when you check up on them."

Scrounge fidgeted some then shook her head. "That won't work..." She sighed. "Bane is already leery of my collections... "

He tried to calm her down. "He doesn't have to know about your collection here on Maximal land. Just tell him whatever story he'll swallow about how you come across our messages. And, if your own kind ever turns on you..." Moonhunter hesitated for a second, thinking this over, "we'll grant you amnesty here."

"If I survive. You don't believe that I will though." She gave him a soft smile, a rarity. With a deep sigh Scrounge nodded. "Okay. I will play your game."

"Thank you," Moonhunter said genuinely with a nod. "I don't know if you care or not, but by agreeing to this you may end up saving everyone's lives. I'll be back in a minute with the recording. Gorebash, Jenkins, you two will take her outside when I return and untie her. Then you will escort her to the border." Without waiting for their reply, he turned and began to walk away.

"And, Jenkins. You'll be on latrine-cleaning duty for the next week." He smirked to himself. That would hopefully teach him to be so cavalier about life while under Moonhunter's command.

"What?" Jenkins called out but knew better then to argue.

"You have a cute aft!" Scrounge called to the departing Moonhunter, earning her a disgusted look from Jenkins. "So... can we wait outside? This place is stuffy."


	3. Chapter 3

The evening light cascaded across the wild, untamed world bathing the dense canopies and running rivers in bountiful shades of scarlet, purple and gold. The moon, at this time of the year, was a simple sliver of pale color in the sky slowly becoming visible to the naked eye. Diurnal beasts began to settle in for a long night while their counterparts slowly awoke.

The wonder and majesty of the cycle was lost on one particular inhabitant. Thick salt and pepper fur and long, wide ears were a hallmark not known to this planet, but were sported by this odd and out of place being. A Cybertronian was he, taken refuge in the form of an alien creature from another planet call Earth. His name was Crosshare. A jittery fellow by nature, Crosshare was not one to push into the wilderness at such a time balanced between the relative safety of the sunlight and the immanent danger lurking in the shadows. Not without a reason at least.

Not by order from a higher up, but of his own free will was the Maximal scout darting through the forests and jungles, taking special care to look out for any oddly moving roots. His cause was one of a deeply personal nature. A friend had confided in him his location during a time that would cause much distress if he were to be found. The far south of the Maximal Territory was the hiding spot of Streak, a Predacon defector and recently a Maximal fugitive in thanks to a loss of control of powers sudden and most incredible. It was there that Streak said he would be if Crosshare ever needed to talk. Deciding now was better then never Crosshare had slipped out of Zeta-1 at a time he would not be sorely missed, just after dinner when he would usually be sleeping it off in his bunk.

Hopping at something along the lines of twenty-nine miles per hour, Crosshare came to a sudden stop, slamming on the proverbial brakes. The scout dug his paws into the soft earth, shifting much of his weight onto his hind legs. The stop was not immediate, momentum saw to that. The ground was ripped apart, uprooting the grass-like plants sprouting from it releasing a strong stench of nitrogen from the soil exposed by four parallel tracks.

Crosshare huffed, his technological lungs demanding air to aid in cooling his systems. Bounding around at such speeds tended to do that. Slowing his desperate plea for air, Crosshare looked around. He had come to a small clearing… nothing fancy, simply a small area where trees had failed to thrive due to some unknown reason. The grass covered the clearing in uneven and random patches of green; the bare land had taken a grey color.

Streak was shaken up. Badly. This was not a hidden program. It wasn't even a rogue program or a virus. This was something much, much worse. The details of its nature still eluded him, but after what he had experience after his last encounter, he knew that the origin of his new power was not the bright gift from his creator he had thought it was. No, it was not even native to his body.

He had killed the ferret Predacon thoughtlessly, he hadn't even been aware he was doing it. He had slammed on the brakes after he had already destroyed her spark, stopping just short of carrying the fight over to the hideous alien that had stood alongside her. He hadn't even given the _command_to kill her, it had simply happened, like a random thought popping into his head, she had been dead before he knew he was thinking of killing her. Then, he had taken the bodies...he had taken the bodies of two of three Predacons he'd met and...

He saw Crosshare, almost half a kilometer away through the dense foliage. His optics functioned so much better now. He flew down like a bullet, landing easily on his armored feet. He was larger now, twenty or thirty percent larger, and three or four times more dense. If his wings weren't many times more powerful than they had been, he would not be able to fly any longer. That extra density wasn't something Crosshare would be able to detect, but the added size and the bulkier frame would be, as well as the much louder beating of his much stronger wings. His armor had also grown darker, appearing now as royal blue.

The dragonfly looked to his comrade, and his face was drawn...haunted. These weeks had not been easy on him. For all of his hopes before, now he caught himself wishing that it would all go back to the way it was. In that fervent hope, he could never catch himself wishing the power would go away, only that he hadn't killed anyone. The power was intoxicating...for all he feared it, he loved it as well. How could he not? Nonetheless, he had seen things now which checked even his most jealous lust for power.

"Hello, Ears. What's shakin'?" He did his best to come across as casual, nonchalant, but he did a pretty miserable job.

With a panicked yelp, Crosshare catapulted himself into the air with all the strength his legs had to offer. Which turned out to be a whole lot of strength incidentally. Screaming all the way up, Crosshare felt himself slow and stop. He opened a single optic, thinking Streak had caught him. No such luck, the force of gravity just took a few seconds to reestablish the pecking order. Once more he was thrown into a fit of terror as he plummeted twenty feet to the ground, hitting it with a painful smack.

Choosing to lay there for a few moments, Crosshare slowly worked his way to a sitting position, moaning in pain, his head throbbing from the impact. Now Crosshare was able to get a good look at Streak, or at least, someone who resembled the mech.

"Uh, hi Streak," Crosshare said woozily. "Is it just my concussion or do you look different?"

The dragonfly jumped himself as he watched Crosshare's extreme reaction. _Wow, I didn't know Ears could fly... I wonder if I should-_Streak caught himself and shook his head. With his body behaving as it had been lately, catching his friend in midair would be as dangerous as letting him fall, maybe more so. He chose to let Crosshare deal with the ramifications of his own abilities...it seemed like both of them were having control issues these days. Crosshare's next question ended this musing, though, and brought recent events back to him in force.

"Um...yeah. The thing in me has been working a lot of changes, lately. I'm a little taller, I'm a lot heavier. I'm deeper blue, for some reason." He tapped his gun, forcing an unhappy smile. "But you know, it hasn't made me any more accurate, yet." He would like to lighten the mood, if he could, but in his current state he didn't have much in the way of ideas.

"How about you? Still spooking easily, seems like. 'Hunter cooled down at all?" It didn't really matter...if Moonhunter had relaxed security, he'd just step it up again at the first sign of Streak. Really, he was just hoping to ease into the conversation. Surely Crosshare had some business, since he'd come all the way out here.

Crosshare laughed bitterly. "If calling a mech hunt for you is 'cooled down' then yes, yes he has. Reason I came here actually, Moonhunter's had us sweeping the territories looking for you. This area is next on the list so you'll probably want to lay low." He looked over Streak, so altered from his previous state, feeling a sense of unease from his friend's new form. "Geez Streak, what's going on with your body? You said that your strength came from a program but I've never heard of a program altering someone's body like this."

Giving the mental command for transformation, gears and plating shifted; altering Crosshare's being into something more, something mechanical. In robot mode, Crosshare's height did not imcrease much but he was more than thankful for proper hands. Peppered tan fur quickly became complimented by metal painted drab shades of green and orange. He scratched the back of his head and screwed up his face. "Are you positive this is just some weird program?"

"Hm... that could be a real problem, Ears. I escaped him and a whole team of bots before, what makes him think he can catch me?" It was a puzzling question. He was a flier. If Moonhunter was serious about catching him, that meant he was bringing fliers of his own. That meant the Wingblades...probably the entire team of them. He hated Diomedes, and would be glad of an opportunity to flaunt his new powers taking him down...but the whole group? It wouldn't be a friendly spar, they wouldn't check their shots, and he would have to go all out. That wasn't something he wanted...for their sakes and his both.

"The Wingblades. Right." He hung his head slightly, clenching his fists. He would end up killing them, but they'd probably kill him, too. An ugly prospect, indeed. About as ugly as that of answering Crosshare's next questions.

"I don't know what it is anymore. I fought against some Predacons, and one of them called in the entire base. When he did, whatever's inside me started contemplating how to prepare for a fight against a whole base. I felt it access my knowledge concerning how many Predacons that meant, and...it didn't seem phased at all." He was having trouble looking Crosshare in the eye. Things had gone from terrible, to worse.

"Before I knew it, my body had killed two out of the three Predacons, and I was flying away. I don't know what this little thing inside of me is capable of, but...I'm beginning to think it didn't start as part of me...that maybe it isn't even Cybertronian. When I was back in neutral territory, I...I..." How did he say this next part? How could he? Did he even know how to describe what happened next?

"I felt like I was possessed. I... I sort of... _ate_ them." Was that the best way to say it? "My body changed, and it absorbed them. It took a few hours, I was in a haze through most of it, but I saw them fusing with me, and when it was done, I looked like this." He looked at the hare Maximal, a tinge of desperation in his black optics. "What can _do_ that, Crosshare! What kind of technology_ is _that?"

Crosshare stared blankly at Streak. It would be easy for one to imagine the sound of a dial-up internet connection often used on Earth in by gone days emanating from the scout's cranium. In a clipped, fast voice Crosshare finally spoke. "I'm sorry Streak, I thought you just said that you did something incredibly stupid that would no doubt escalate the already dangerous situation between us and the Predacons and that your body is apparently possessed by Unicron because I know that you would never do that even given current circumstance even to test your new abilities especially considering the vast number of powerful predators that inhabit this Primus forsaken mudball that would no doubt pose a challenge in combat."

He stopped and took in a deep breath before continuing. "WHAT THE SLAG WHERE YOU THINKING? Attacking Predacons? Do you actually have anything in the head of yours or is it just for decoration? We are just barely keeping the peace in our own ranks and you could have just snapped the last string keeping us from war! Oh, and you are apparently the second coming of The Fallen! Ain't that just chromy!"

Crosshare began to pace back and forth, running his hands through the patch of fur dominating the top of his head. "Sorry Streak, it's just this is...Good Primus this is bad, bad, bad! Y-you said you '_absorbed_' the P-Predacon's you k-k-killed right? This could useful. I-I mean think about it, that's something way beyond Cybertronian level tech, p-put's Gestalt technology t-to shame t-that's for sure! T-this could h-help! Y-you weren't i-in total c-control when t-this all happened! G-get your st-structure checked out, s-see what's causing this. I mean, t-this can't b-be a n-natural p-part of your programming!"

"They attacked me first, it just sort of...escalated. A lot faster than I thought it would. And I can't get it checked out...if I go in under lock and key, they'll never let me out again." Streak looked away from Crosshare. "At least not with any of this power in tact. I don't want to go back to how I was, Crosshare. I've tasted this; it's terrifying, but if I could ever control it...I've wanted this all my life. It isn't my fault I was built wrong, this is the only chance I'll ever have to be strong like this."

He looked down at his feet and gritted his teeth. He knew how this sounded. It was insane. He was frightened of these changes, badly frightened. He had caused the deaths of others, which was unforgivable, but... the Predacon in him knew how unlikely it was that he would ever get another chance at power like this. What was good in him knew it had to be stopped, but that was only half of his nature. Streak lusted after power; it was what had made him fit to be a Predacon in the first place. He knew it was wrong, he knew it was awful, but he also knew he couldn't let it go.

"Primus, Ears, I know how that sounds, but I can't tell you how long I've been dreaming of power like this. I can't imagine going back having tasted it, knowing that it could have been mine. I can't give up on it, not yet. Maybe it isn't Cybertronian, but it has been mostly under my control so far...it just gets overexcited in battle." He knew he was just making excuses. The bottom line was that he wouldn't let it go...there was no way to justify the decision, not really. He was just being selfish. Nonetheless, he had gone through a lot to do the 'right' thing, he felt. He had sacrificed a way of life. He had sacrificed his place among the Predacons. He would not sacrifice this.

"Thanks for the heads up." He looked past Crosshare, as if imagining what it would look like when Moonhunter came here, with twelve fliers overhead and a troop from the security force in tow. "I'll try to steer clear of Moonhunter's search party."

The scout shook his head. How could he get it through to Streak if he wasn't willing to listen to reason? "You don't get it do you? This isn't _your_ strength!" He looked Streak dead in the optic as he spoke. "What's inside you, doing this to you, isn't true strength, just an imitation of it. Never thought of you as a mech to fall back on someone...some_thing _else's power. Any victory you achieve, anyone you beat while using that false power will be hollow. Meaningless!

Shifting into Beast Mode, Crosshare kept his gaze firmly locked with Streak's. "Of all the things I thought of you, not once did 'weak' ever come up. Please, for the sake...for the sake of your own dream, wake up."

Turning away, Crosshare began to leave but as he leaped away he called back, his voice cracking; "I-I still keep you're location s-secret. Y-you're s-still my f-friend a-after all." At least, he hoped it so.

And then Moonhunter's voice sang out: "It's over, Streak!"


	4. Chapter 4

Moonhunter had had his suspicions about Crosshare ever since a short conversation in the command center. He supposed he could not blame the scout for his loyalty to his friend. He could understand wanting to give someone the benefit of the doubt. But Streak had done unforgivable things at this point, and his sins continued to compound. Moonhunter had given him his chance and the former Predacon had crossed the point of no return with no signs of remorse. Friendship obscured the facts in Crosshare's mind, and Moonhunter made a mental note to go easy on him when this was all over. But co-commander of Colony Zeta had greater things at stake than any personal feelings he held toward anyone.

As soon as it had been reported that Crosshare had left the compound in a suspicious manner, Moonhunter ordered a spy drone be sent out to track him. Sure enough, Crosshare made a beeline toward the southern tips of the claimed territory. Moonhunter instantly mobilized any and all members of the security forces he had available, even drafting the Wingblades to aid in taking Streak down. Diodemedes had volunteered almost too eagerly for Moonhunter's tastes, as had some of the human members of the security team, but he couldn't afford to quibble over personal vendettas until after Streak was either incarcerated… or slain. At this point, he didn't really care which, so long as they put an end to his murdering streak (no pun intended).

After mobilizing his forces, he ordered them to hang back just outside of Streak and Crosshare's scanner ranges while he went in alone. He didn't owe Streak any more chances, but giving him one anyway would be the Maximal thing to do. And he wanted to get Crosshare out of the line of fire. He emerged from the brush, announcing his presence by maximizing into robot mode. No weapons drawn, not yet. "It's over, Streak!" he called out, pointing at the rogue. By the Matrix, how had he gotten so big? "We've heard about your attack on the Predacons. Surrender now, before you start a war and get _everyone_killed."

The echo of Moonhunter's voice ripped at Crosshare's spark. A cold chill ran down his spine. He had been followed! Snapping around, Crosshare dashed back toward the clearing, mind racing faster than his feet could ever carry him. He had betrayed Streak. He should have been more careful! It was his fault that Moonhunter had found him! Primus knew the force Moonhunter would bring out if it meant bringing down Streak. But maybe he could prevent any fighting! He had to try! By the time he would get to the clearing however, it would all be too late...

Streak heard Moonhunter's voice booming through the forest. Saw him now with his enhanced optics. He intended to respond, reply in some way that might alleviate the situation, but he was caught off-guard by something inside. He was compelled to look up, and saw the Wingblades hovering in the distance. The thing inside of him toggled his memories concerning the Wingblades, as well as his former leader's earthbound forces, and calculated their power to be sufficient to destroy him if he held back, if he hesitated.

The presence in him wanted to move forward and remove the threat. Such a force could easily dispatch him if it caught him unawares... if Moonhunter did not announce its presence next time. Streak wanted to refuse, but he understood the rationale... the thing inside assured him that they could survive a confrontation. For a moment, when it directly accessed his higher functions to convince him that they could win together, he became closer and more familiar with it. In that moment of closeness, he saw a memory... this thing had been carried on the crystal that had pierced him that day with the miners and Taurius. This thing... this immensely powerful thing, must have been very small for no one to have noticed it. Streak's wings unfurled, and exploded into motion. A hurricane of wind tore at the trees, and the deep blue bot shot straight upward, into the air.

Moonhunter expected Streak to come back with a witty retort, some defiant crap, as he had once been prone to do. But this was not the Streak he had once known, he realized. Instead, he saw Streak's attention shift away from him, as if he wasn't important. Moonhunter took a nanosecond to analyze his options. He could attack Streak while he was distracted, hopefully take him down now while he had the chance. Of course, those chances seemed slim. Finally, Moonhunter looked up himself, trying to see what had caught the rogue's attention. "NO!" he bellowed as Streak took off after the Wingblades. He opened his comm., transmitting to the Diodemedes even though he knew it was too late, "Frag it, I told you to wait for my signal!"

Now, there was no more chances to reason with Streak. This day could only end in either his death or theirs.

Diomedes was still in formation with his eleven Wingblades, prepared for anything. They had been briefed on Streak's new abilities, how he had become much faster and much, much stronger. Nonetheless, those things didn't matter that much in a firefight. Allegedly, lasers still burned holes in him, so he would go down eventually. He had certainly grown faster, but he had seen Streak fly before. His fighters knew to expect high agility, but relatively low top speeds. Strafing would be the best tactic, but they all knew to break into evasive maneuvers once the dragonfly employed his missiles - the only thing he really had going for him, as far as the albatross was concerned.

_"He's coming into our airspace, 'Blades. Stay in formation, everyone keep to your wing-man, and be ready to evade any missiles headed your way, or shoot down any headed for an ally. Those not targeted or covering your wing-man, go for the bug himself. Spare no mercy for the Predacon." _Diomedes studied the blue blur streaking up into the sky, and brought his two side-cannons to bear. He had never respected the ex-Predacon, he had never seen any real strength there, just a lot of bluster and feelings of entitlement. He had to hand it to the annoying flyboy, though, he'd managed to bolster his strength impressively, according to the ground-troops. The great albatross respected Moonhunter both as a leader and as a soldier, and anyone who could dismantle him so easily was clearly a force to be reckoned with. Nonetheless, Streak was in the air now. Diomedes would give the new-and-improved flier fair odds against himself one-on-one, especially with those missiles of his, but there was no team out there that could match the Wingblades in the air. The idea of an individual holding out for more than a few minutes was out of the question.

Carrion felt the cool air of the night rush over his jet-black plumage and chill his fleshy red scalp; a condor among a vast menagerie of Terran birds. Of course, appearances were not his goal. He had chosen the form of a condor because it told his enemies exactly what was about to happen to them, they were going to die and he was their angel of death! Melodramatic? Perhaps. But it was the truth. Perhaps he enjoyed killing more than was really healthy but that was a non-issue now. His orders were to take down the traitor Streak by any means necessary. If it had been possible, he would have been smiling the whole time he flew alongside his teammates. Perhaps his Volt Cannon would get a real work out tonight? If not, he always had his backup weapon, something that really cut to the chase. And if anyone ever brought up the fact that he would make such a pun, they would learn something countless heretics often learned; chainswords kill things pretty well.

Pepper carefully adjusted the pinion feathers on her wings as the Airblades flew toward what would undoubtedly be one hell of a fight, assuming the reports on Streak were accurate. The small femme's thoughts were interrupted by Diomedes issuing orders. She quickly locked onto the now-airborne dragonfly mech, and with a whispered command, she shifted into her bot form and quickly drew her twin pistols, the energy blades igniting as soon as they cleared the holsters. She wasn't anywhere near the optimal range, but it always paid to be ready.

Tail feathers moved constantly, ever so slightly to keep the Maximal going in the right direction. Brown wings beat the air as Fever soared through the thick jungle air. Sharp eyes watched for signs of the target; the rogue that they would be destroying. His head moved in quick, jerky movements as he received the general plan from Diomedes. _Simple enough,_he thought, though he knew this wasn't going to be no cakewalk. The red-tail would wait until the said target, that filthy Predacon, was spotted before he transformed. He felt far more comfortable flying in beast mode. The hawk swooped down beside his wingman, or wing-woman as the case was. He turned his head to the femme, noting that she was preparing herself early for the fight. Maybe it was a good idea, just in case they were attacked suddenly, as they had been warned of Streak's speed. Fever dropped back and took his place behind and to the right of the femme. Maybe it was wrong to ride in her slip-stream, but she was the one prepared for battle. He'd be the gentleman and allow her to get the first shots when the scum appeared.

Flanking Fever - and abruptly corrupting the handsome view of him and his wingman, was a hideous and shady-looking carrion bird whose broad and opaque, chestnut wings cast an immense shadow on the forest's floor, enlarged by the height he soared. _I bet 500 energon chips that we'll get this in under 5 cycles_, Spitetalon said on the private comm-channel he held with his teammates. He had never concerned himself much with Streak before. Despite having engaged with him in conversations very few times, knowing of his past allegiance and having kicked his aft in a flight challenge the more feisty mech had set him, Spitetalon had never developed a certain feeling for him other than indifference. Even now that he had gained these new and unknown 'powers', the apathetic maximal had remained the same in terms of unconcern about Streak. For him, he was just another foe...another thing he could strip clean of flesh and pieces worth energon.

Gleamwing flew in by the side of his wing-mech, having to slow his pace so the less-fortunate Spitetalon could keep up with him. Despite the homeliness of the carrion-eaters, they were a glorious unit, as glorious as they were effective. And Gleamwing was the most well-kept of the unit. All the femmes fawned over him, and perhaps tonight while sharing the story of today's victory he would make one (or two!) of them lucky enough to see the inside of his quarters. Heh, it was good to be a Wingblade. They were the closest thing to heroes among these ragtag colonists. _Just don't damage his staff weapon, if anyone can help it_, he transmitted over the Wingblades' comm. as he and Spitetalon flanked right, moving into battle positions. _I cleared a place for it in our trophy room back home._Gleamwing had taken the liberty of collecting the weapons of the Wingblades' more notable foes, and he was hoping to start a museum to the his team's glory aboard their roost in the Zeta-2. Streak himself probably wouldn't be an impressive kill, but the story of this day was certainly interesting enough to qualify for a place in their tome.

Streak flew through the air, straight up in a collision course with the Wingblades. His mind went toward the missiles in his chest. The one part of him that this new power hadn't touched... they had been near perfect already, and there had been no way to improve on them. The one thing which should always have been feared, despite the frailty of his body, despite his haphazard aim, despite his low top speed, despite his physical weakness... the missiles were the same as always. And the Wingblades underestimated them. _Initiating firing protocols. Ports 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6: Fire missiles._The six hatches on his chest, which looked like distorted abdominal muscles, opened up, and the missiles poured out in rapid succession, soaring upward at twice his own speed. Each individual missile quickly correlated with its brothers, establishing different targets for each of them to maximize damage. They cork-screwed through the air, evading the first shots fired their way. One of the missiles was hit, but its outer armor protected its payload, and it stabilized itself and continued along its course.

_"He's deployed his missiles," _the great albatross said over the comm link even as his two cannons zeroed in and fired on the incoming artillery, trying to get a bead on their maddeningly confused trajectory. _"Begin evasive maneuvers! Shoot them down if they're on your wingman. He's fired them all, so we've got no more coming after this batch."_That was good. He thought one of his fliers might get hit, but there were enough of them to carry the wounded safely to the ground and still contend with the renegade. Diomedes was the biggest, followed by Carrion at his right. It was difficult to tell, given the projectiles' zig-zag flying pattern, but he didn't think either of them had been locked onto, meaning that they'd be there to catch any lighter mechs who needed a slowed descent down to the ground.

The albatross didn't begin to worry until he had successfully struck one of the missiles, and it kept going. They were closing in too quickly. They weren't going to reduce the barrage. In only a few seconds the situation had become deadly serious.

_"Take evasive action, all of you, we're not taking these down. Moonsong, it's at your nine, dive, Sunsword, cover her!" _Diomedes quickly turned his gaze over to the other side, where more missiles were cutting through the air, screaming toward their targets... Maximal soldiers... _his_ soldiers. _"Brine, dive!"_Their formation was designed to give them all maximum range of motion and maximum coverage of their fellows, but these missiles weren't going down, and they were too fast to escape. The seagull's partner was the first to be taken; the missile detonated at the mallard's breast as he banked left, and left the burning ruin of that light and speedy mech plummeting into his final dive. Brine, one of his longest-running allies, was the next to die, struck as the missile cut a diagonal along his flight path, the explosion sheering him in half.

He banked hard himself, delivering cover fire to Moonsong, even hitting the missile twice, before it - and the owl Maximal with it - vanished into a cloud of fire. The missiles were all over them, and their maneuvers weren't outpacing the damn things. They had too much maneuverability! The owl's wingman, Jetstream, one of the team's most agile fliers, was clipped while pulling off a spectacular aerial somersault in defiance of the warhead's pursuit, and lost control as his wing disintegrated. The falcon began spiraling toward the ground, leaving a trail of metal shards and smoke in the wake of his tumbling descent.

Scoop had only barely managed to evade as well, but was still falling. He had been dazed by the blast, and had no flight control. Legs was nowhere in sight...Diomedes hadn't even seen him go. The Albatross roared over the comm. link as he dove down first for the pelican, and planning to cross over and pull Jetstream out of his dive thereafter. He had the wing power to carry them both safely to the ground.

_"HIT THE DRAGONFLY. HE'S OUT OF MISSILES. TAKE HIM DOWN. CARRION, KEEP TO STRAFING. TEAM UP WITH GLEAMWING AND SPITETALON. I'LL BE BACK SOON."_His voice was loud, but he was yelling to cut through any panic of theirs, not his own. He had been their trusted leader over these long years for a reason.

_"Moonhunter, trouble in the air. It might be too high for you to make out details. His missiles have six of my men down. I'm bringing two of them back down into your care. I want your medic here before I get back down. My five remaining fighters are going to decommission your flyboy. I want to know what tech was in those missiles after this."_

As soon as Streak's missiles, weapons of cowardice, came flying in, Gleamwing maximized, unfolding from a beautiful golden eagle into a nimble warrior of the heavens. His forearms quickly primed themselves with feather-shaped darts, each carrying a miniature explosive charge. Though he preferred to fling them one at a time, this battle called for efficiency and expediency, so he would have to use his launchers. He screamed in rage as he saw Sunsword die first. He had never given up his ambition to chisel his way through her icy veneer and romance her… and now he would never get that chance. He was helpless to do anything to save Moonsong either, a femme he had always regarded as a little sister. Diomedes flew down to catch the wounded and Gleamwing wanted to help, but Diomedes was the best of them and if any had a chance at catching them before they were crushed by impact into the ground, it was their leader.

Pepper was only slightly concerned when Streak launched his missiles, but that concern quickly turned into horror and fear as she watched helplessly as her team mates were ruthlessly blown into so much scrap. Diodemedes yelled commands broke through the fear, and Pepper immediately banked sharply to bring her own weapons to bear on the rogue bot. "Fever, cover my six, I'm going to try to disable his wings!" Pepper shouted over her own comm. Her fear had been replaced with cold calculation and anger. Streak had hurt and killed her friends, and she was determined to make him pay for it in spades.

The femme flier could feel her wings straining to make the alterations to her flight path, but she ignored it and pressed on. Less than a second later, she finally managed to get the dragonfly in her sights. Sharp reports told all that she had opened fire, and several of her shots were affected by her flight path, causing them to miss. Correcting for her previous error, Pepper fired another cluster of shots at Streak's wings. She let herself have an instant of satisfaction as the shots headed toward their target, but she squashed it quickly, so as not to allow it to cloud her judgment any more than her anger already was.

The red-tail hawk watched as a blue blur filled his sights. Fever had about half a second to be both shocked by Streak's speed and his sort of deadly beauty before death rained down around him. Burning-hot pieces of Maximal bounced off him, not big enough to cause any damage, but enough to shake him up a bit. He turned deadly serious as he transformed, loading his kestros as he swooped after his wingman. "Don't worry I'll keep any fire off ya!" He called back to the femme over his communications. Almost as soon as he had stopped speaking a large piece of debris fell towards Pepper. With a quick flick of his wrist and a single rotation of his weapon a deadly dart intercepted the junk and knocked it off course with the scissortail. Fever reloaded and stayed hard on the female's tail, eyes scanning the sky as he watched for anything else. He saw Pepper fire some shots at Streak, silently cheering her on. But this was no time for jubilations, so he kept one eye in that direction and the other on the sky. For a brief second he pulled a bit away from Pepper, getting a single opening for a shot of his energon tipped darts. He fired, reloaded, and fired again before zipping back to Pepper, closing the gap between them again.

Gleamwing's vision turned red. They had to make Streak _pay_. The air warrior bellowed in rage, moving in with Carrion to make a strafing run. _"Rip into the son of a glitch!" _he yelled. _"Spitetalon, stay back until Carrion and I soften him up. There's still five of us and only one of him. Let's take him out in the name of the fallen Wingblades!"_

The screams of missiles and the roaring of explosions were all that met Crosshare's ears upon reaching the clearing. Streak's missiles, finely tuned instruments of certain death, burned an unholy trail toward the approaching Wingblades. Streams of energy lanced out to defend against them. They did little good. In only a few moments, Crosshare witnessed the deaths of at least five of the airborne Maximal warriors. All at the hands of his closest friend. Was this how it was going to be? As he stood by, would he be witness to the massacre of his fellows? Would his nightmare once more take shape in the here and now? Crosshare froze.

Moonhunter's vision was keen enough to watch the horrific scene above him. Within seconds Streak had taken out half the Wingblades. If Moonhunter had a stomach, it would have lurched in horror. He realized that he was just out of his league - he was no tactician, no master of the battlefield. His previous career had been spent chasing down bad guys one on one. But he had no experience in leading a whole army. "What have I done?" he asked himself aloud, though there was no one near to here. He had become so obsessed with stopping Streak that he had lost sight of his reason for pursuing him: to prevent more death.


	5. Chapter 5

Diomedes was too concerned with his current task to pay attention to what transpired above. Scoop was closer, and so he dove for him first. He wasn't the fastest of the Wingblades, but he was the strongest, and that made him perfect for the double-rescue. It might have been wiser to assign the duty to Carrion, as the albatross was also the battle leader, and the condor would have been strong enough, but Diomedes hadn't thought clearly...for once in his life, his leadership had been hampered by his personal feelings. He had never seen it, but after the war, he had softened up. He appreciated his Wingblades, because these were the ones that had made it through with him, these were the soldiers that had been strong enough to serve under him and come out alive. He had come to care for them deeply. Seeing them die had driven him further off the end than he could account for; but now he'd be damned before he'd let Scoop or Jetstream take a crash to the beak. Catching up with Scoop's dazed form, the heavy flier secured his gun to his side and took the falling bird into his arms. From there, he turned his head to see Jetstream's spiraling, one-winged body plummeting some distance away. Another minute, and he'd have them both down safe. Then he could gain altitude again and help with the cleanup.

He'd seen it. He'd seen his shots connect with the traitor Streak. He'd seen them do damage to his altered hide. He'd seen Pepper's guns turn Streak's wings into glorified tissue paper. He'd seen them heal; regenerate at a pace that far outstripped anything the sky warrior had ever seen.

The missiles had done their work, done it excellently. Streak had seen them destroy enemies before, and knew that they were particularly devastating against fliers who were more lightly built and who could be killed even by simply disrupting their flight hardware. The thing inside, though, did not take the moment to feel his discomfort at having killed the Maximals. It was worth risking death to keep this power...and it was worth killing to keep it, as well. His Predacon side could not be denied when the promise of such strength was within his grasp, but he was at war within himself. He could not have kept his focus, save for the force inside now driving him forward. _We must finish,_it urged. He knew it was right.

The fire of the Wingblades seared the air around him, but with such speed and agility, it appeared as if he'd never be hit. Still, they were as experienced in the air as the dragonfly; even with his improved abilities, they had too much practice in air engagements to be outclassed. Blue lightning arced downward, lancing into the ex-Maximal's chassis, burning a wide swathe over his chest plate. All four wings labored momentarily, and the flier's trajectory veered left. Bright flares of light met his change in direction, and his systems informed him that his pair of left wings had been injured, four holes having been left by the rounds from Pepper's guns. He was losing altitude. The sky began to spin as the mech nosedived. Control not yet lost, he twisted out of the path of several energon darts. The whine of his wings grew, and his injuries began to close.

Streak flew down, and then looped back up at speeds unbelievable even by the standards of those accustomed to flight. His closest adversary was Pepper. The presence inside assured him that this was life and death. It didn't need to, he already knew. They had come to steal his most prized possession, or his life. He had killed some of them already. There was no stopping now. The dragonfly's wings healed, and his top speed increased dramatically. He changed course, coming in parallel to the scissortail the same way a jeep might sideswipe a deer. The dragonfly was moving at hundreds of miles per hour at impact, and his momentum launched both of them into a dramatic spin through the air away from her wingman Fever; Streak's grip on the nape of her neck was far too strong even for the vicious centripetal forces to tear them apart.

Fast as lighting, the thing inside of the dragonfly compensated for the chaos around the mech, and gave him clarity through the tumble. He quickly righted himself, stopping the spin and interposing Pepper between himself and the hawk. Over her shoulder, he fired several shots in the hawk's direction, before placing a foot on his captive's pelvis, and leveling the barrel of his automatic point-blank in the center of her back. The gun went off. And again. And again. To the dramatically hastened Streak, the shots seemed far too slow...he was able to see the flash and impact of every round into her back, drilling into her core while she was held by the neck, helpless in his vice-grip, and held beyond the point of his rifle by his upraised foot. For him, it took ages, but for the others, it transpired with brutal alacrity. Streak emptied twelve shots from his weapon into Pepper's exposed back. Slivers of metal and globs of molten alloy flew from the growing wound until he was sure that her spark was extinguished.

Flesh and feathers parted easily under the metal the gun fired into her body, and the metal armor underneath didn't hold up much longer. By the time the seventh shot had been fired, Pepper was dead. By the twelfth, her chest armor was starting to distend from the inside.

Streak released her in death, and the beautiful black bird fell down from the heavens, to the earth below. Fear still etched into the plates of her face, Pepper's shattered body plummeted to the uncaring earth of the planet below. Her last thoughts would never be heard, and her last wishes unknown by those she regarded as friends and comrades.

Carrion cursed and fired another stream of electricity, missing Streak by mere centimeter's and blowing a smoking hole in the ground bellow. Then, at blinding speed, far greater then he'd ever known Streak capable of, the rouge had entangled himself with Pepper and ended her life in a manner of great savagry. In some instance's, seeing such a creative kill might have excited Carrion, earned his enemy his respect. However, two circumstances interfered with that. The first was that it was his teammate that had been killed. Secondly and most importantly, she had owed him money from a bet some weeks past. "You slagger! I'll kill you for that!" His voice like static feedback on a microphone, Carrion roared and unleashed electric blue hell upon Streak, blanketing the area Streak flew in with thick streams of deadly cobalt lightning.

Fever dodged to the left, but still got hit in his right leg and one scratched the side of his face. Amazing! Impossible! The perpetrator had managed to regain altitude, grab Pepper, and fire shots over his shoulder in the time that most mechs would find it hard to even comprehend. And then Streak killed Pepper. And then he released her to fall from the sky. Red rage was channeled into reaction time as Fever loaded his kestros and fired several darts as he zipped past Streak. His tail feathers were just barely scorched by Carrion's blue energy weapon, and if the hawk had been paying more attention, he wouldn't have gotten hit at all. Fever glanced over his shoulder, fired a few darts just in case, and began climbing. He needed speed, and the surest way to get speed was to get altitude first.

While Gleamwing was momentarily frozen by the sight of his ally being slaughtered by a dead mech, Spitetalon was riled into action as soon as Pepper's corpse was released to fall away like so much trash. From out of the corner of his optic, Gleamwing saw his own wingman rush into Streak, swinging his melee weapon. _"Spitetalon no!"_ he yelled, but it was too late to stop him. Streak couldn't regenerate indefinitely, the laws of physics prevented that… they needed to wear him down, preferably from safe ranges. Perhaps a close combat attack could inflict damage more quickly and efficiently but at this point Gleamwing did not want to risk losing any more Wingblades. There were too few of them now.

Streak looked to the next opponent, only to see bright streaks of energy hurtling toward him, and striking explosively into his shoulder pad, leaving it a twisted and ruined mass of metal and chitin. A lancing beam of bright blue arced into his chest. The next beam hit his hip and the third severed his bottom left wing. The scorching pain was horrifying, and he screamed accordingly as he began plummeting to downward.

His remaining wings worked to right him through his pain... the hidden being wasn't perturbed by the throbbing pain in his shoulder or the burning tracks along his armor. It managed to right him, but he couldn't collect himself in time to answer the vulture that charged him. Energon bolts flew down on him, pouring into his damaged chest plate and shredding it. He had not forgotten the nastiness of the vulture's weapons... he had always felt like Spitetalon was the reason no one would ever want to be taken prisoner by the Wingblades. He managed to level his own weapon and return fire. Even with three wings, he could keep up with these fighters now. The two of them circled and strafed, energon bolts and yellow laser-charged projectiles flying past each as they orchestrated their dance of the death by the iridescent blue strobe of the condor's fire. The vulture was either surprisingly agile, or the damage had rung his bell: Streak was having trouble landing hits. His chassis was so damaged already, and there was fire raining in from the others too.

It took some time of regaining his wings and working through the pain of his damage, but eventually the dragonfly was moving quickly enough that they were having trouble hitting him again. Nonetheless, his systems were telling him to stop fighting...he was in critical condition. The one inside had an answer for that. He closed with Spitetalon, sinking into the mech's flesh with his terrible grip, and hooked his gun to his him. Spitetalon did the same, but then lashed out with the other. Vicious claws dug into Streak's face, and he gritted his teeth in exquisite agony as the acid began to leak into his faceplate. He brought his hand up from his holstered gun, and drove it through Spitetalons torso. He brought it back as the vulture raked his face with both claws, and plunged it back in with such force that he knew the spark had been destroyed. The ravenous mech went limp in his arms, and the dragonfly stopped his wings, allowing them both to fall.

With the vulture on top of him, sheltering him from fire, he would have time to do what he needed to. The one inside knew that their regenerative abilities had reached their limit... they needed more mass to work with. Spitetalon would be very useful to that end, as the two Predacons had been, earlier. As the two of them plummeted to earth, Streak's body melded with the vulture's, and he began to absorb him.

As soon as Gleamwing realized Streak was _absorbing the mass_of Spitetalon, he muttered a denial replete with expletives. But that motivated him into further action, firing his ammunition directly into the former vulture's body to destroy as much of Streak's "meal" as possible. Transformers did not hold a body in as much reverence as humans did. To beings with tangible souls that could be swapped from body to body, a body was merely a vessel. And once the vessel was emptied it was little more than spare parts or even scrap metal. Gleamwing had no remorse for destroying the last mortal reminder of his fellow Wingblade. Spitetalon would not have wanted his body to be used to power an enemy and continue his rampage anyway.

_"Carrion, Fever, Diomedes, where are you?"_ he sung out. There was desperation in his voice. Gone was the arrogance, the surety of Wingblade victory. He would be happy if they just came out of this with no more causalities. Gleamwing was realizing that he had been treating this whole thing, his membership, his celebrity, even this fight, as if it were a game. But no more. _"We need to end this son of a glitch NOW."_

Diomedes had changed course to intercept Jetstream, and now he was taking the two downed Maximals to the ground as quickly as possible. He knew that the battle wasn't going well. It was quite a feat shaking off the shock of so many deaths so quickly. They needed to finish this job, then they could respectfully dispose of the dead. He finally reached the ground, where he found Moonhunter waiting.

"Take care of them, I'm going back up!" With that, he pushed off from the ground with astounding ferocity, and shot upward into the air. He only hoped that he could get there in time to make a difference. He saw Pepper hurtling toward the ground...but she was already gone. He looked up and saw Streak falling with Spitetalon. It would be quite a while before he got up there, his other Wingblades were still much closer to the action than he was...but Streak was falling! He just hoped that Spitetalon would survive to boast about his heroism.

Carrion ceased his barrage, feeling the temperature of the gun reaching a painful high. If he kept it up any longer, he risked the thing shutting down or just simply exploding. A five second cooling period was necessary at the moment, much to his great annoyance. Amidst the hailstorm of weapons fire directed at Streak from his remaining teammates he had seen Spitetalon engage the target in close combat - a stupid move that cost the faux-vulture his life. Now, as the two plummeted to the ground below, Carrion wondered if the engagement had finally ended Streak's life? That train of thought was derailed as he saw the horrifying process by which Streak absorbed the remains of fallen foes. Spitetalon's body melted and oozed into Streak's like so much slime into a sponge.

Curling his upper lip, Carrion balked. "Seems like I finally found someone that's a bigger freak than me!" That would not do. He did not know what was happening but Carrion had a feeling that whatever it was, it would not be behoove him to allow it to happen any further. His Volt Cannon sufficiently cooled, Carrion took aim once more and unleashed cobalt hell.

The enemy was starting to weaken. And he was still taking down Wingblades left and right. At this rate, the fight would simply be won by the target because there would be no one left to fight him. They didn't have the right tactic; they had tried sending in all the bishops and castles when what they really needed was pawns. It was too late for that now and they were running out of pieces. Fever had to do something. All their attacks were good in theory, and against a lesser creature they would have worked. But not Streak; what they needed was less penetration, less or the mass amount of tiny shots and more instant destruction. In that case, energy weapons just couldn't stack up to simple, brute force.

Fever saw Carrion fire at Streak and prepared his attack. He launched all his remaining darts before transforming back to beast mode. Fever had never trusted melee weapons, and there wasn't much beating several thousand years of evolutionary design for what he wanted anyway. The hawk took aim at the falling Streak and went into a dive. His wings strained under the pressure of the air around him, but his body was designed for this. Closer, closer. "TSEEEERR!" The hawk raked forward his talons and aimed for Streak's head.

Pain. Chaos. Noise. It was enough to overload one's processors, but each time Streak feared he would lose himself to the maelstrom, the thing inside asserted order again, and he could think clearly. Again, he felt that it was close to him... it had the wisdom of many battles, many more than himself... not only was it terrifyingly powerful, it was ancient beyond comprehension. The corpse above him received round after round of enemy fire, and was mostly gone before the thing inside could finish devouring it. What had been Spitetalon's back was charred scrap after Carrion's blue onslaught, his legs were missing after Gleamwing's barrage of bombs...even Streak, sheltered beneath him, had cut up by all the flak. It was with some shock that he realized Fever's final darts had made it past Spitetalon's corpse and detonated, taking his left arm with them.

He had absorbed enough to bring his wings back into top condition, however, and that was plenty for right now. With a sickening sound, Spitetalon's conjoined body donated its arm to Streak, the left, taloned limb sliding grotesquely from one shoulder to the other. With that, Streak broke off the attachment, his wings roared into life. Fever was there, already at top diving speed, and before the dragonfly knew it, half of his face had been swept away with the passing of the hawk's wicked claws.

**"AHH!"**The scream was involuntary, but the thing inside forced his calm. The condor's light show and Gleamwing's barrage were already beginning again now that Fever was passed. Streak took off like blue lightning, his course so fast and so erratic that Carrion - despite the instantaneous transfer of damage that his weapon was known for - couldn't draw a bead. That burst of speed couldn't be kept up interminably, but it didn't need to be. Fever had been closest to start, but with low ammunition and lacking the altitude to dive, he was the least threat. Carrion was further off than the eagle. Streak twisted quickly so that he flew upside-down, and impacted Gleamwing feet-first. The impact was made at three points, however, because the barrel of Streak's gun slammed into his faceplate at the same instant as his feet dented the metal of the eagle's chest.

Gleamwing was an ace flier, and managed to twist away from the first shot, but the bigger, more powerful dragonfly hooked his feet together behind the Maximal's knee, making escape a complicated endeavor...more complicated than he had time for. With no escape, the dragonfly adjusted his aim and pulled the trigger, sending a stream of ammunition into Gleamwing's face. His head was gone by the time his killer released the trigger. Deep inside of his own head, Streak was feeling sick. _I joined the Maximals because I hated killing people this much weaker than me. If I'm this powerful... there's no one in the universe, not even a Prime, who can give me a real fight, who I can fight without feeling like a murderer. Every battle will be the same as the first time I killed a human... what's was the point of my entire conversion if killing is always going to be this sickeningly one-sided?_

Diomedes was still on his way, desperately clawing for altitude. He saw Gleamwing fall...he had seen all of them fall. Only five left...he had to make sure all five of them made it.

Anger was Carrion's fuel. That and a healthy dose of psychosis. But primarily anger. With Streak's newfound speed increase and deft dodging of his Volt Cannon, Carrion's tank was full. Through crimson-painted vision, he watched Streak dart about, unpredictably and without reason, making it impossible for any of his shots to strike the infernal dragonfly. Scorched earth and shattered stone were all that his weapon was capable of producing at this point. Holding off on further fire, he waited for a better opening, a pause in the slagger's movement just brief enough to end it all. He got it when Gleamwing struck out in a doomed attack with only one possible ending in this reality: his death.

Still entangled with his comrade's carcass, Streak proved all too easy the target. "HA! This is it! DIE AND BE MY FOOD!" A demonic light in his optics, Carrion pulled the Volt Cannon's trigger once more. The barrel vomited forth its deadly light.

The blue laser light flashed more quickly than the dragonfly could escape the corpse, and the searing pain tore through his frame like liquid fire. He fell once again, his right-side wings totally gone this time. The thin, gossamer membranes had burned away in moments, before the dragonfly turned and interposed the dead eagle between himself and the condor. Damage was critical... the blue blaze destroyed eagle too fast for absorption to take place.

Spying the hawk as he gained altitude, Streak looked back at the eagle and braced his feet against its falling form, springing away from it toward the flying hawk. The transfer of force wasn't perfect, he could have jumped much faster spring-boarding from the ground, but it was enough. The hawk swerved at the last second, but the bot's stolen arm...he had _lengthened_it in preparation for the catch, and caught Fever's wing as he dodged. The two tumbled downward as the condor readjusted aim, and the dragonfly smoothly killed the mech as they tumbled to the jungle canopy below. Suddenly, just after Streak had twisted Fever's head off, the albatross was there, adding his weight to the spin and scrabbling desperately to grab the hawk's body away from the insectoid demon. One powerful leg kicked him away, and the absorption began.

The lancing blue light and rapid-fire red projectiles rained down, and Streak was soon forced to abandon the body, but not before stealing the hawk's wings for himself. The things slid from one body to another just as Spitetalon's arm had done, and soon Streak's fall became a glide, and then quickly he roared back up into the air. He wasn't as nimble with these, but he could still compete with the other two. His remaining wings detached from his body and became a bladed staff... his old weapon, which quickly crackled to life with glowing energy. He flew upward toward the two bots raining fire down on him. The end of the battle would be decided in close combat... they would be too slow to keep it at range.

Diomedes flew up beside Carrion, his side-guns blazing away while he took slower, more precise shots with his electron beam cannon. The two of them were laying down the hurt, and he could tell that for all of his body's regeneration, Streak was reaching his limits. His wounds were closing, but his frame was shrinking...the dragonfly was close to his original size again, and Diomedes had to assume that he got incrementally smaller each time he had to heal himself. Given the size he was already when he arrived, the great albatross had to assume his Wingblades had been dishing out the punishment ever since the missiles were gone. The condor's weapon was especially potent; if they could stay in the battle a little longer, he believed they could finish this in the sky.

_"Gleam's wings aren't carrying him as fast as the others, Carrion. Fire until my order, then switch out to melee mode. See how fast he grows back his arms when he doesn't have any more to steal."_The seconds passed, and their weapons-fire struck the dragonfly directly. Strips of metal pealed away, chitin and feathers exploded. Still Streak came, but he was getting slower...he was almost at their level now, only marginally faster than they were. Hopefully his strength had suffered, as well. _"Switch!"_ he commanded. Gun to his side, he had correctly gauged the distance, and his two glowing scimitars had been drawn before Streak made first contact. Being the more accomplished swords-men, Diomedes took the brunt of the first attack. Streak still had more raw speed than he had, evidenced by the flurry of attacks he had to parry, but he could be managed. He was still very strong, but the superior fighter diverted that strength through skill and leverage. In a moment, Carrion would jump in with his chainsword and he wouldn't have to handle the dragonfly alone.

The command from his superior (a term Carrion found rather odd - after all, who was superior to him?) was carried out immediately. Ending his barrage of fire upon Streak, he released the grip upon his Volt Cannon. The threads of azure energy fizzled out and the weapon unraveled before some unseen force pulled the dozens of biomechanical feathers behind him to form a plum of black at the base of his spine. His left wing, which in robot mode looked like a shriveled limb, exploded off his back before twisting and contorting into a new form. What it became was nothing short of sinister. A serrated blade no shorter than five feet, a handle of ivory metal and a large block made of what could only be described as a mish-mash of machinery for a hand-guard. With lightning reflexes, Carrion snatched the weapon by its handle, flicking a switch just below the machine block. With a horrible whine, the serrated edge of the sword began to rapidly traverse the edge of the blade, spinning faster and faster until each tooth became a solid blur.

Gripping the chainsword in both hands, Carrion launched himself at Streak with psychotic glee. Diomedes and Streak where engaged in a dual of such intensity and passionate violence Carrion felt his desire for blood explode to new heights he had not experienced since the Great War so long ago. Laughing insanely, he lined himself up with Streak's side and raised the screaming sword above his head. With great swiftness, he brought the chainsword down with a vertical slash, intent on splitting the flyer in half with one stroke.

Streak's processors were going at full-tilt, but his power was diminishing as the battle wore on. All the projectile fire he had taken had been healed partially by his stolen mass, but now the program within was doing something else with what he'd stolen, sparing only enough of his excess metal to keep him functioning, not to keep him fresh. Why was it behaving differently now? He couldn't keep fighting if he stayed torn up... but as he demanded it regenerate his hurts, he learned something frightening: he had no power over it. Thus far he had enjoyed a form of mutual command: sometimes it prompted action so strongly he had trouble controlling himself, but acted in his best interest, and would respond to his desires.

He hadn't realized it at first, but all of the program's actions had been dictated first by his own consciousness... he had desired more speed after he had been hurt by the miner's prank, and more strength when he was overpowered by Taurius. He had wanted to be repaired when he was damaged in all of his battles... and the one inside had obliged as soon as it knew what he wanted. Their connection had grown stronger over time, to the point that it knew to heal him as soon as he got hurt, and had a strong link to his consciousness and could follow his train of thought even for desires as complex as wanting new wings or a new arm. It had never dulled his pain before, though, as it did now...and had never scaled back its healing process. These two things had Streak worried, but he didn't have time to contemplate the import of these shifts in behavior while he was battling both remaining Wingblades at once. He should have been able to easily handle them... why was the one inside holding back? It had enough extra material to fix him right now, and if it did, he could dispatch these two and be on his way. The thought made him sick... before now, these hadn't been fights at all... he didn't like this power, but he liked death even less. Maybe it was responding to his distaste for killing such comparatively weak opponents? Well, if that was the case, he wanted it to stop paying attention to that and repair him again!

His frenzied attacks against the damnable albatross failed to get through before Carrion brought serious power into the equation. Unaccustomed to his near-normal speed again, he didn't react in time to dodge the attack. His reaction to seeing the oncoming attack was to swing for the fences with one bladed end of his staff, plowing through the metal of Carrion's midsection while the condor's blade ate through his own hardened alloy interior, cutting him down to the pelvis with its spinning teeth. Sparks, alloy, and chitin flew out of the wound liberally, while the biting chain teeth screamed against their food. Streak's super strength was fading... everything was leaving him! Nonetheless, he'd had enough strength to almost bisect the Maximal...though the injury had not been to the spark, and so the condor, while grievously injured, would live. The sheer force of the blow that had nearly cut him in half though had sent the dragonfly spiraling down, and Diomedes would not relent now that they had Streak in good position.

Pain burned through Carrion's gut. The condor hacked and gurgled out a pitiful scream. Mechfluid spewed from the horrifing gash, mingling with the spray from Streak's wound. Alerts flashed before Carrion's optics, blocking his vision before fading to transparency. The slash had torn through several vital components and opened his body up to be ravaged by the planet's radiation, those natural forces that required Cybertronians to take beast forms on this world. And now his internals were laid open for those unmerciful energies. He felt his flight systems slowly ebb away.

Cursing, Carrion gathered enough strength about him to descend to the ground before he died. Touching down, his life-fluid splattered the grass. Clutching his stomach, he lurched forward and vomited thick globs of mech-fluid that had built up in his throat. There was no way about it. He would have to enter Stasis Lock if he were to live. Of course doing so would open himself to attack from Streak. If the little slagger had lived through the attack. Giving up, Carrion spitefully allowed his vision to fade, slipping into Stasis Lock and into the hands of chance.

As the dragonfly reeled from the blow, his systems trying to register the extent of the damage and just how he had taken such horrifying damage, the albatross plummeted down with all the speed he could muster, and collided with the falling mech, driving a curved sword down into each part of his divided torso. Streak screamed. He screamed as badly as he had when he'd first been burned by Carrion's cobalt flames. Now, the pain from the condor's other attack was beginning to awaken, and the two scimitars through the chest simply added fuel to the flame. And the program inside was silent. He dropped his staff - Diomedes was too close to hit with it, anyway-and grabbed the scimitars, to pull them out with sheer strength alone. The one inside had cut back on his newfound powers... was it tapping into some part of him that regretted his actions? Maybe he needed a more conscious connection with it? Or maybe it was just betraying him? He felt it still lurking within his system, storing its energy, accessing his files, manipulating the mass it had stolen. It... it wasn't going to help him? He beat his wing...one had come off when Carrion had cut him...and it gave him just enough push to reach up and grab Diomedes' wrists.

"Enough!" he screamed, and lashed out with his legs, catching the bird in the chest. The guns on the Maximal's flanks activated and punctuated their split with rapid laser fire. The scimitars had been yanked out of his chest...but he still had only one wing. The program inside wasn't responding...but he willed the changes himself, and as he plunged, bathed in red laser light, he felt the eagle wing at his back begin shivering into two. He felt a store of mass somewhere inside, a hidden density, begin draining into his back. He felt something from the program...shock? Maybe shock. Then anger. Oh yes. It was then that the program came to confront his consciousness directly. If he hadn't been preoccupied he might have paid more attention.

_You're letting me die!_His growing wings were being eaten away by the laser fire...he turned to take the damage to his split and sparking chest.

_You are interfering. Do not interfere._

The pain was terrible...he felt the program dull his senses further.

_There. Cease interference. Cease existence and be out of the way._

What was being said and what was being communicated were very different things. As Streak's wings beat into life, he was made aware of many, many things, both concerning the nature and the limitations of the thing inside him. The implications were...horrifying.

That was what was inside of him? That was what had accidentally found its way into his body, after millions of years of entrapment, and that was the source of his new-found powers? As he finally stopped his fall, he prepared to draw more mass from that last reserve, enough to launch himself upward and finish off Diomedes and Carrion. They were both strong, but now that he had found a way to override the thing that betrayed him, they would be no where near his match. He didn't even look at how close he was to the ground. He didn't even notice that he was within range of a certain sniper's sights.

A crawling, wriggling chaos ate its way through Crosshare's central processor. Dark memories long buried, memories that he sought to hide from bit and gnawed their way to the light of day, blocking out rational thought. Memories of that twisted malformation, a composite being of rot and decay wrapped in a mechanical body. Memories of how it had torn through every defense, slaughtered and devoured his comrades, his friends and loved ones with malicious glee. Memories of his own cowardice, paralyzed with fear as the evil thing brought down death and sorrow upon the land.

He had failed. Because of his cowardice, he never pulled the trigger. Because of his cowardice, Monstructor had slaughtered almost everyone. Logically, Crosshare should have known his weapon, as strong as it was, posed no threat to the twisted Gestalt. Logic was not part of his life. Only guilt and fear ruled in that part of his mind.

As he watched in silent horror as Streak, his friend, confidante, and ally tore the Wingblades apart, devoured them, consumed them with a mere touch, memories and reality blended together. The evidence was brought to bare. Streak had become Monstructor. Monstructor had become Streak. Evil lived. Was this how it was going to all end? Would Streak kill the rest of the Wingblades then he and Moonhunter? What of those back at Colony Zeta? Would they fall prey to Streak? What of the Predacons? Their numbers had already been thinned by Streak, what would stop him from killing the rest? What of the stars that lay beyond? Would he travel the cosmos, seeking death and destruction? Crosshare's cowardice, would it once more bring nothing but death and misery?

Centuries of his buried pain, anger, and all of his sorrow broke forth like a rushing river from a dam. He would not allow it to go on any further! "CROSSHARE MAXIMIZE!" With a roaring command, internal gears and pistons sprung to life, changing and shifting his body into a new form. Humanoid limbs replaced his paws, his face flattened and the fur pulled away to reveal glinting metal. Panels in his back slid open and ejected two parts of his signature weapon, a deadly Electron Sniper Rifle. Merging into one, Crosshare took them in hand and gazed through the scope, magnifying its effect with his own powerful optics.

Despite the tales of a Cybertronian's endurance spread far and wide across the known universe, in truth they had just as many weak points as any other species. The foremost was their joints. To enable any type of movement, armor had to be sacrificed in those areas. For a skilled sniper, those areas were protoform's play to hit. A single pull of the trigger, a bolt of energy, and Streak's left arm exploded in a shower of mech-fluid and flame at the elbow. A second pull, his right arm joined in gory revelry. A third and fourth shot crippled Streak, blowing off his knee caps and severing the lower portions of his legs. Crosshare brought his aim to Streak's torso. A bolt ripped through the flyers abdomen. A second, through his left breast. A third and final shot pierced through the most heavily armored portion of Streak's, and every Cybertronian's, body. His spark chamber.

The first shot was so unexpected, and Streak's senses so dulled, that he almost didn't notice it. The shots that followed happened in quick succession, and before he knew it, he was soaring upward as just a torso. It wasn't until the first two shots through his chest that he spasmed painfully, and then the final one sent him down. His consciousness flickered on the way down...it was still several hundred yards to the ground. His thoughts were muddled as he tried to bring sense to the world spinning around him, and then his vision stopped altogether when he slammed into the ground.

Crosshare dropped his rifle.


	6. Chapter 6

Diomedes lighted to the ground, and fell to his knees. His men were dead. He had gone in with eleven Wingblades. He had returned with three. They would never fly in beautiful formation again. Not the comrades they had once known. Not the glorious, loyal, capable unit that had made it through the war with him. Not his soldiers. Not his friends. The great albatross hung his head, and was silent.

As a human, Moonhunter had known the sense of utter dread witnessing a battle fought against someone that he himself was powerless to stop. Watching the Wingblades fight, and be slaughtered by, Streak harkened back to his first encounter with the Transformers race.

_A triad of Seekers were attacking his home city - part of a world-wide campaign as part of a tactical ploy to stretch the Autobot forces thin, he would learn later. Kerry Vasquez was a junior firefighter, just a trainee who had no right to be out in the field yet, but the city had called in every single person they could to work in the crisis. He and his teammates were fighting desperately to keep the fires from spreading to the power plant. Their struggles would have been in vain were in not for the intervention of the Protectobots. Through his mask he watched, utterly stunned, as the five Autobots merged into the giant Defensor and extinguished the fire practically with a wave of one hand._

Just as he was about to rejoice in their victory, the Decepticons returned, pounding into Defensor's back with their missiles. He decided there was only one course of action. Ripping off his gear, he commandeered a firetruck and drove it right into one of the Decepticon's legs, working faster than his brain could come to its senses. But he was not suicidal; the whole point of this was to survive - he jumped out at the last minute. The kamikaze truck served as nothing more than a distraction to the alien war machines, but it was enough for Defensor to rally and make a counterattack. As a human civilian, he had not been able to fight the Decepticons, but he had helped the Autobots to do that for him.

It seemed, however, that the being now known as Moonhunter had run out of his luck at long last. He watched the battle above him, pistols drawn, cursing at his inability to get a shot. He couldn't risk hitting the Wingblades. But as they fell one by one, he didn't know what to do. He had always been one to take initiative and do what had to be done, but for the first time in his long life he didn't know what to do. Responsible for the lives of hundreds of colonists and fighting an entity he did not completely understand, he was simply out of his league. Everyone had a limit, and Moonhunter had surpassed his.

Somehow, though, it seemed Streak had too. Unable to grow any longer, the two remaining aerial fighters somehow managed to beat him down close to the ground. Moonhunter looked down at his pistols, knowing how ineffective they would be. As quickly as possible he stored them away and reached back to draw his more powerful rifle, which he had just installed onto himself for just such an occasion. But before he could bring it to bear, he saw Streak's legs explode, then his arms. Moonhunter glanced to his side, just in time to see Crosshare take the killing shot into his friend's spark core.

As their friend dropped his rifle, Moonhunter signaled the rest of the troops to cover him and he slowly moved in to where Streak lay limp. He had no idea what to expect and kept his rifle trained on him at all times. Every instinct told him to rip into the body with more shots, but somehow it didn't seem right. For all Streak had done, he had still been a member of his team, once. And call it human superstition, but he didn't want to defile the body any more than it already had been.

Streak's optics came back online, but the images they provided were fuzzy. He had landed face-up, but his stolen wings had been snapped. He didn't look much like himself anymore, between the horrible burns and slashes mutilating his face and body, his bullet-amputated limbs and his feathered wings. This thing...it had used him up, it had empowered him and then abandoned him in his moment of need. That thing! He had felt it turn its attention away from him as the sniper round pierced his spark. Whatever it had been focusing on before when it had turned its back on him, it was doing that again, now. Anymore, though, he didn't have the will to redirect its power to heal his broken body. He was finished.

He turned to look at the barrel of a gun being pointed at his face. He gave a cracked, pitiful smile, raising the stump of his upper arm an inch in greeting. "Looks like you're better," he croaked, hydraulic fluid draining from the corner of his mouth. The commander looked as good as new. "Didn't figure you for the cunning type, you tricky slag." The words were harsh, but his tone would have friendly and sarcastic but for the exhaustion and pain in it. He laid his head down on the grass.

"That, up there? That's why I became a Maximal. The Predacons ordered a human slaughter. I did it, and I hated it. No challenge. No sport. So pathetic, to be the killer or the killed. Such a joke..." his sentences were short and clipped, he was having trouble speaking. "Makes me sick. Same as this one did...I don't enjoy fighting...when it's that easy. The power left me at the end. Stopped helping. Left me alone to die." He gave a trembling, sardonic smile... the smirk he was always known for. "Else I'd still be up there, mixing it up. I-" his voice cut out for several seconds, giving static, before switching back on. He was blown up and scrapped and dying. He wouldn't last longer than a few more moments. Various clangs and pops and whirring sounds coming from his insides told the tale... systems were shutting down, burning out. There wasn't long. He tilted his head to look straight at Moonhunter, and gave him a solemn frown.

"I'm about offlined, Hunter, so I've gotta talk fast. This thing inside, it talked to me during the fight, as it was leaving. I think it told me more than it meant to. I know it's a nanocomputer, only a few molecules across. Way beyond our level, subatomic stuff, most of it I don't understand. It was created to fight interstellar wars for another race that was in this system a long time before we were... it takes control of any mass it can touch, and restructures that to do its dirty work. It can turn almost anything into almost anything else, and there's no limit to how much it can control, except that it's all gotta be touching the core body: it can't control things remotely. This one remembers a time when it controlled the mass of an entire _planet."_His voice cut out again, followed by loud static, but through force of will he concentrated enough to get his next message through.

"It's...it's serious business, Hunter. Its creators knew what a mistake they made, and managed to corral these weapons on this planet, where the radiation stops them from enslaving surrounding mass. It's the only thing that stops them. If it touches us...our bio-mass protects the computer just like it protects our systems. It's why it can steal your body parts and fix mine...it's why I got infected when the miner's stupid prank pierced me with a stalagmite. A living Cybertronian can compete for control, like I did, so he kills first before absorbing them. He has access to all of my knowledge, I..." He had a lot to say. It was totally by accident that he had come by this information - the program was unaccustomed to protecting information from a co-dominant intelligence - but now he knew that it would be the Zeta colony's only hope... they had to know what they were dealing with.

"It's still in here planning something big, Hunter, I can feel it. I'm dying, but it won't die with me. Light me up before it comes out, or run away." He forced himself to wear his old, mean-spirited smile. He refused to go leave the world any other way. He wanted to tell the hare something, but his optics had gone out entirely at this point, and he didn't know where he was. "Tell Crosshare I'm sorry, you Maxi scrap-heap." He let the lids of his non-functioning eyes droop; he was exhausted, and he was ready for whichever came first: the Maximal fire, or the slow death of his own systems. His vocal systems finally gave up the ghost, and he felt everything inside begin to shut down. At this rate, he wouldn't feel what came next at al-…

Crosshare looked on with glassy optics as Streak spoke his finally rattling words, which fell on his deaf ears. So he'd done it. He'd killed his friend, knowingly and willingly. Crosshare had ended the fight. He'd ended another sentient life. He used to keep score of his kills, back _before._Streak had once asked him about how many Predacon's he had killed. Funny that.

Crosshare fought his demons and won. Streak fought his and lost. He'd been felled by Crosshare's own hands. Had he betrayed his comrade? Had his comrade betrayed him? Had Streak really become that thing reborn? Was this even reality? Perhaps just some twisted fantasy? A phantom world crafted by Crosshare's own diseased imagination forged by guilt as a personal hell?

No... no that would be too easy, too clean for what he deserved. A nice thought though.

"I'm… sorry too, Streak." Moonhunter wanted Streak to know, wanted him to understand that he hadn't wanted this, any of this. He had been one of the few who had actually appreciated Streak - the old Streak - for his virtues. These past weeks would be remembered as nothing but a tragedy in the highest order, for Streak's victims… and for Streak himself. Treachery and murder had always enraged him past the point of forgiveness… but today… he could feel nothing but sorrow. But he couldn't tell Streak that. He didn't have the words. He had tried to make him understand before he had gone down this road, and now it was too late.

He listened as Streak said his final words, and listened well. He didn't know if he could believe what Streak said. At this point he had little to gain from lying, but he had also proven that his mind had not been the most stable these past weeks. He wanted to believe that his trooper hadn't been responsible for his rampage. But if what he said was true, then this was not over, not unless he took further action. Moonhunter lowered his rifle slowly. The choice should have easy, but it wasn't. He slumped visibly, spying a glance at Crosshare. As Streak's closest friend he wanted to pass the burden onto him, but he couldn't; the scout was practically catatonic. It wouldn't be fair anyway.

Moonhunter surveyed the fallen corpses strewn throughout the woods around them, the wounded being tended to by Lightfang and her partner Jumpstart. He had to remember, couldn't forget what this was all about. Preventing deaths. He hadn't done a very good job so far, but perhaps there was still time for them all to gain some redemption. He turned around, surveying his unit. Streak's former teammates. One in particular stood out. "Flare!" he called out. This Maximal had a flamethrower weapon that spewed flames at several hundreds of degrees Celsius. He almost chocked on his next order as he stepped away from Streak for the last time: "Light him up."

The fire bathed the dragonfly's mutated, mutilated, and scrapped body. The fires raged, and the chitin began to crack, pop, and melt. Still, the body was not dead. It was simply making the final changes. In raging fires, it was not unusual for components of the burning object to explode at random, often caused by an internal object heating up and expanding more quickly than its outer coating. In this case, the thing that had lurked inside of Streak waited for that occurrence to launch three specialized structures as detritus from the wreckage of Streak's body. A thin thread connected each structure, too thin to be readily spotted by those intent on the blaze.

The structures were exceptionally narrow needles, narrow enough to avoid detection by warning systems once they had pierced the external armor of three Maximals. The program had designed these structures for a very specific purpose. The thread connecting them also connected back to Streak's burning body. Rapidly, the Maximals' mass came under its control, and before they knew what was happening, the spark chambers surrounding their most crucial components constricted brutally, killing them all. Its control over them wasn't so perfect that their anguish could not be seen, however. The rest were aware a moment before its plan reached fruition.

Flare turned around to the other members of the security team, and let loose with his flamethrower, engulfing them in fire. The other two Maximals walked into one another, slamming into one another before the sickening noise of their metals melding and twisting themselves could be heard. Flare backed up slowly into this chaotic contortion of bodies. The thread that connected them to Streak grew in thickness and strength, until it pulled his burning mass into the maelstrom of parts that the rest of them composed. While their arms, legs, and torsos swam in a repulsive mass of biological and metallic flesh, Flare's flamethrower remained untouched, unleashing his river of flame while the change took place.

Uncaring optics absorbed the sight of Streak's structure being engulfed by searing tongues of flame, melting and deforming the metal that was once the scout's friend. What was the purpose of this? Judgment, condemnation of the fallen flyer? Why did they do this? Crosshare knew not.

Then Flare spun about, blasting his team with fire. The twisted dance that followed forced the scout back into the realm of reality, growing to comprehend what was happening. A burning, hulking mass born of the nightmares of monsters and madmen rose up like wickedness given shape. That alien force, that evil thing responsible for this whole miserable affair, was not dead.

"No," Crosshare choked out. His hand crept toward his rifle.

"No," The stock still felt warm as Crosshare grasped it.

"No," Crosshare jerked the weapon from the ground and fixed the butt on his shoulder, looking through the scope at the flaming mound of withering corpses.

"NO MORE!" Driven by pure rage, Crosshare unloaded countless bolts of energy into the burning behemoth, ripping apart its internal workings and breaking down connections. The hail of weapons fire piercing it proved far too much for even its impressive regeneration capabilities. With a final shudder, the beast collapsed and melted away into nothingness, leaving only a burnt and bare area of land in its wake.

Afterwards, Crosshare was hailed as a hero by the Maximal's and human's alike. He started therapy sessions to help handle his own fear and guilt complexes and eventually became one of the bravest of all the expedition members!

Of course those things were prevented from happening by one crucial factor: the Universe really loved to jerk him around. As Flare's flamethrower was waved about, the flames had burned through an overhanging branch which proceeded to fall and smash right into the barrel of Crosshare's rifle, forcing it out of his grip with the butt of the gun slamming into his jaw.

Spots of color danced before his optics as he regained his bearings enough to look down at the fallen branch and his weapon pinned beneath it.

The sad thing about this whole affair was, Streak had believed he wielded power beyond measure, taking lives like some predatory bird, but as soon as he had become surplus to the creature's requirements, he had been given a short, sharp lesson that the power had wielded _him._Foolishly, as Moonhunter watched Streak's remains consumed by the blaze, he allowed himself a sigh of relief. Was it well and truly over, finished? He wanted to believe so. He had seen enough comrades die screaming today. But he should have known - it never ends! And now, unfortunately, they would be the ones to reap the whirlwind.

Unable to watch the fiery pyre, Moonhunter began to walk away. With his back turned, he was unable to witness the murder of three more of his men, their bodies taken over and turned against their comrades. He heard the _fwoosh_of flame, turning around just in time to witness a hellish inferno of body parts merging into each other and Streak. He had to jump back to keep from being singed himself. No! It was supposed to be dead! What was this foe? Could it even be hurt? Moonhunter looked back into his surviving forces, wondering if he had any right to put them through more. For the first time in a long while, he considered retreat. But, he supposed, it would be better to fight and die - than allow this creature to grow stronger and slaughter the rest of the galaxy.

He saw Crosshare motivated into action but stunned by a falling branch. Well, he was proud of the scout for his effort. Moonhunter knew he had to get him out of here alive. Could he do no less? It was time they made a stand. He never did want to live forever, anyway. "Quick! Before it can eat any more of our friends!" Moonhunter shouted as loudly as he could, drawing his rifle once more and riddling the fiery cluster with lethal bolts of energy. "Give it the worst case of indigestion its ever had!"

Fire raged, but the amorphous exterior of the being quickly gained immunity to fire. Lasers poured in, and it was damaged. With only this much mass, it understood that it could not win, despite the preemptive bout of flame it had poured onto its assailants. Quickly, it dedicated a transformer's worth of mass into the production of one great lever-like limb, a freakishly robust leg, which it used to kick itself a quarter mile into the air. Diomedes flew after it, but his weapons could not pierce the thing's mutant hide on their own.

Something terrifying was beginning to take shape out of that swirling mass. Arms and legs were beginning to sprout in a nightmarish mimic of Cybertronian form. Great gossamer wings-the design clearly stolen from the deceased Streak - sprouted from the rippling flesh of what must have been the creature's back, and they shuddered into life, beating the air into a hurricane roar, and tearing off into the distance. Laserlights from Diomedes' weapons and those on the ground followed after it, blowing pieces of its changing shape away as it retreated, but the Maximal hide it had taken had since become something much more durable, and it had not been shot down.

**TO BE CONTINUED.**


End file.
